Friends waiting to happen
by BlueRampion
Summary: Liz Free doesn't find all of her friends at once. She collects them, one by one, as the years of her childhood go by.
1. Chapter 1

Liz is four years old.

She holds her mother's hand tightly as she stands outside the gates of the happy, welcoming-looking building for her first day of kindergarten. She's trembling with excitement; the kind that only four-year-olds can possess. Her excitement is partly nervousness at being separated from her mother, but she is also looking forward to this day.

She will meet new kids. Interesting kids, friendly kids. Kids who could become her friends.

But Liz is shy. What if she says the wrong thing? What if they don't like her? What if she's not interesting enough for them? Worries flicker through her mind and she ends up hovering on the outskirts, watching all of the other children and wanting to join in, but not really knowing how. The others already have their own groups and friendships, and she can't see any gaps where a Liz-shaped friend can fit in. The only space she finds is on the swing alone, with no one else to push her.

She misses her mother, and she can feel herself about to cry.

The tears never have the chance to spill, because Liz's attention is suddenly pulled to another girl on the other side of the playground. She's perched primly on a bench next to the sandpit, smoothing down the creases in her blue dress with white lace trimmings. The dress is lovelier than any clothing Liz has ever worn, and the lace makes her think of the big box of scrap material her mother has at home. For a glorious moment Liz imagines how with that lace she could make herself a dress like that.

Maybe she could talk to the girl, Liz wonders. But the moment she thinks it, she shrinks back. The girl is alone, but she looks wholly uninterested in the other children around. She looks untouchable, her blue dress with the white lace trimmings separating her from all of the other children. And from Liz.

The other kids mustn't have realised that the blue dress was untouchable, though. Three rowdy boys, playing an enthusiastic game of cops and robbers, tumble into the sandpit. They knock over another child's forgotten bucket of water, turning the sand to mud. The girl starts to inch away, sending anxious looks towards the dirty boys.

She moves too late. With an almightily crash the sand flies up into the air, showering down all around the sandpit – and all over the beautiful blue dress with the white lace trimmings. The dry sand settles down like dust and the wet sand sticks to it in big ugly brown clumps.

For a moment there is silence, and then the girl begins to cry.

Gasping in horror, Liz's heart instantly goes out to the girl. How awful it has to be for her, to have her lovely dress messed up like that! And before Liz can even remember that she is meant to be shy, she is jumping off of the swing and striding over to the girl. "There, there," she says, patting her on the shoulder. Then the strangest thing happens – she finds herself turning to the boys and addressing them crossly. "You should be more careful, you know! Look what you did!"

The boys slink off, guilty. The girl in the blue dress tries to send them a cross look, but tears still run down her face and she's much too upset to give them a proper glare. "It's all ruined," she wails.

"Oh no, it's too nice to be ruined!" Liz says. She starts to dust off the dress with her hands, trying to get rid of all of the sand. It sticks to her hands instead, but Liz finds she doesn't mind at all, because all of the dirt is coming away and leaving the dress beautiful again, and the girl's sobs die away. "There we go – all better!"

"Thank you," the girl hiccups.

"I'm Liz," says Liz.

"I'm Richelle," says the girl, a smile emerging from underneath her tears.

"Let's be friends," Liz says quickly. Maybe even a little bit desperately. She so wants to have a friend all her own. This girl with the pretty dress – she needs looking after. And after all of this, Liz finds that she also really wants to have someone to look after.

Richelle pauses to think on this for a moment. "Okay," she says. And in the way of children, that was that.


	2. Chapter 2

Liz is seven years old.

Her mother has just started working later on Thursdays and Fridays, so today instead of being picked up like usual she is going to the After School Care. She's never been before, and she's feeling nervous. The school is a scary place after school; lonely and strange without her friends or any other students. But when all the other students have gone home, the After School Care is still open for kids whose parents can't pick them up yet.

Now Liz is one of those kids.

When her class ends for the day, she holds her teacher's hand tightly as they walk over to the After School Care building. She discovered that the After School Care building is actually a house on the edge of the school grounds, out of the way where you can easily miss it. But she catches a glimpse of coloured paper shapes hanging in the window, and Liz holds her breath. She wonders if anyone lives there.

A brightly-smiling woman opens the door – the After School Carer. The Carer takes Liz inside and shows her around as she explains the rules of After School Care. The rules are just like the ones they have at school, so Liz doesn't think they will be too hard to follow. But she feels odd, standing in this unfamiliar house that's not a home.

The Carer shows her the living room, filled with games and puzzles and toys, and with most of the other children. She doesn't know any of them. They aren't in any of her classes, and some of them are much older or younger than she is. Except for her baby brother, she hasn't played much with children who aren't her own age.

Liz asks if there are any other activities she can do. The Carer smiles and asks if Liz would like to make some crafts in the kitchen. For the first time today Liz starts to feel excited about After School Care, and she nods vigorously.

In the kitchen there's a boy sitting at the table, with blotches of dried paint stuck in his hair. He's staring intently down at something, pushing things around with his fingers.

"Tom, can you show Liz the Perler beads?" the Carer says.

Tom looks up, his face practically bursting with the size of his grin. "Yes!" he says, as Liz clambers onto a chair. "I'm Tom, who are you?"

"My name's Liz," Liz says. She looks down at the table to find that it's covered in curious-looking coloured cylinders. They're small but hollowed out, enough that you could fit them on a string. There are also plastic pegboards, of various shapes and all with little plastic spikes sticking up from them. "How does this work?"

"You put the beads on the boards, and you make a pattern from them," says Tom, pushing forward his own board. Half of the board has the coloured beads slipped onto the spikes, arranged so that it looks like a house. "See!"

"But won't they fall off?" Liz asks, frowning.

"Nope! You can make them all stick together by running an iron over them – well, we don't, we're not allowed to – but then they'll stay together and they won't move!" Tom says. "It's like _magic_."

Liz gasps in surprise. "Really?" she said. She looks closer at the beads. That did seem a lot like magic.

She still doesn't really understand how it works, but she pulls over a circular pegboard and starts picking out some coloured beads to put on it. Soon she has a rather nice looking design that looks a lot like a flower, and Tom's house is all finished. Looking at his, Liz thinks that it looked much better than hers.

"I like your house," she says.

Tom flushes a little red and mumbles his thanks. "I made it because my dad helps make houses," he admits. "He's an architect."

"What's an architect?" asks Liz.

"It's someone who tells the builders what the house is supposed to look like," Tom says. He looks down at the house, suddenly going quiet. Liz blinks, and starts to worry. Tom didn't seem like the quiet type, but Liz didn't know what could be wrong.

Maybe Tom is a bit like Richelle, Liz thinks. Maybe he needs someone to look after him too.

Before Liz can say anything, Tom jumps up and declares that he is going to go find the Carer so she could iron their beads.

"Look, look! They're all sticking now!" Tom says, jumping up and down when the Carer is finally finished with the iron. And sure enough, he's right – the beads are all melted together now, so Liz can pick up her design and it won't fall apart at all.

"Oh!" she says, looking closely. "They've still got the holes in them."

"You could put some string through them, and hang it up," Tom suggests.

"I wonder if I could make a whole lot of them, and have them all together on the same string?" Liz says, already imagining it. "It could be like Christmas baubles!"

"Yeah, that would be really good!" Tom says, waving his arms around excitedly and nearly knocking over a box of beads. "Here, you can have mine – now you've got at least two you can hang up!"

Liz tries to refuse it – the house is too nice to take from Tom – but Tom is determined to give it to her, and so she just takes it and stammers her thanks. She promises that she'll hang it up with hers as soon as she makes some more.

She doesn't get to make any more with Tom though, because just then his mother arrives. She looks like someone who needs looking after too – there's just something about her that looks very sad , as if there's something that's been upsetting her. Tom rushes over to her, clinging to her hand. "It's time to go home, Tom," she says.

"Bye, Liz!" he says, waving to her as he goes off with his sad-looking mother.

"Bye," Liz says after him. She hopes she'll be able to see him again.

Maybe the next time she has After School Care.


	3. Chapter 3

Liz is eight years old.

Today, she has made a discovery. Unfortunately, that discovery is that the bank is the most boring place in the entire world. Maybe even in the entire universe.

She shouldn't even be here, really. But her mother unexpectedly had to work on a Saturday – Liz doesn't really understand why; all she knows is that her mother complained all the way here about irresponsible people who couldn't make their shifts – and her father and brother were already gone, off doing mysterious 'father-son' things that Liz wasn't allowed to join in. And no one had been free to babysit her, so she had been forced to tag along and sit alone in one of the back rooms with absolutely nothing to do.

At school there was the playground, and in her classroom there were books and interesting posters on the wall. At After School Care there were games and colouring-in-books and crafts. Here, all she has are boring old desks and filing cabinets. And she'd got told off when she tried to look in the filing cabinets. Liz had slunk into her own corner after that, not liking being scolded.

She stays still for about fifteen minutes, but it feels like forever. Oh, she's never going to be able to get through this! She'll die of boredom, she knows it.

Just then, a thought pops into her head from out of nowhere. Maybe...maybe she could go exploring. Maybe somewhere in this bank there _was_ a room that was interesting. Her mother had told her that she needed to stay here, though. If Liz went off somewhere else, she'd be disappointed. Liz didn't want to be disappointing. And she didn't want to be scolded again.

It only takes another fifteen minutes before the boredom becomes too much.

Vibrating with purpose, Liz inches towards the door. There's no one else in here with her, no one to see her escape – but she feels bold and adventurous, like she's sneaking out from underneath everybody's noses.

Quickly she darts out through the door and into the bank lobby. Success! And even better, the shape of the bank building means that all of the tellers (and her mother) are around a corner, twisted out of view. She won't even be noticed at all. But to be extra sure, she darts under the bench where everyone fills out the mysterious bank forms. It's not really hidden, but she pretends that no one could possibly see her.

Well, no one except for the dark-haired boy who pops up behind her. "What are you doing?" he says in an incredulous voice, making Liz jump in surprise. He's wearing a funny face. Somehow, he's managed to get only one of his eyebrows to go up. She wonders how he does that.

"I'm exploring," Liz says.

"In a bank?" the boy with the eyebrow says.

"Well…there could be a secret tunnel," she says, defensive.

Something glints in the boy's eyes. "With gold at the end of it?" he says.

"Maybe!" Liz says, getting into it. "They keep lots of money in banks, you know. My mum never tells me where they keep it, but I know they have it somewhere…"

"We should try to find it," the boy suggests. "We can…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Liz spots a shadow coming through the front doors. "Quick, you have to hide!" she says, pulling the boy with the eyebrow down under the bench with her.

The shadow turns out to be a lady, who walks right up to the bench fill out a form. The lady eyes them warily for a second, but Liz pretends that they can't really be seen. The boy's pretending too, staying dead still as if any movement would get them spotted.

When the lady walks away, they both burst into giggles.

"Where do you think the secret tunnels are?" Liz whispers.

"I bet there's one in the conference rooms," the boy whispers back.

"But what if someone's using them?" she replies. They have important meetings in those rooms, Liz knows.

"We'll just have to take that chance. Come on," the boy gets up, and starts making his way to the conference rooms by hugging the walls, crouching over like in the movies. Liz follows behind until the boy gets to a door and stops. Liz halts.

"Is anyone in there?" she whispers.

The boy leans forward, peering around the doorframe. "All clear!" he says. "Go!"

They dart forward, running into the room at full speed and closing the door behind them, bursting into giggles again. "We did it!" Liz cries.

"We're not done yet. We still need to find the treasure!" the boy announces.

Immediately, the search for the treasure begins. They comb through the room, searching every available surface – under the desk, the bookcase, behind the posters on the wall instructing people to 'invest now'. They even start just poking at random bits of wall, to see if anything happens. But they don't find anything – at least, not before they hear a deep voice and the opening of the door.

"Where is my – Nick, what are you doing in here?" says the tall, imposing man with a frown on his face.

The boy slinks forward guiltily. "We were just playing," he mumbles.

"You should have stayed with me. What your mother would think, if I'd lost you!" The man shakes his head. "And you should listen to the meetings, you know. You would learn a lot."

"I'm sorry," Nick mumbles again.

"When you're older, you'll need to know about all of these things."

"I know, Dad."

Then the man looks up at Liz. She tries to not shrink back. "Ah, but I see you have been meeting new people. Who is your friend?"

"Um…I'm Liz," Liz says, trying not to stammer. "My mum works here. She's a teller lady."

The man nods, apparently appeased by this info. "A good job. She does important work, your mother. Now, Nick – it's time to go home," he says, taking the boy's hand and turning to leave.

But before they go, Nick manages to lean towards Liz and whisper to her, "We'll find the treasure _next_ time."

Liz nods in reply. _Next time_.


	4. Chapter 4

Liz is ten years old.

And she can't find her dog.

All she'd done was take Christo for a walk – to the park at the end of the road, like she always did every Friday afternoon. And then she'd let him off his lead, like always, to let him run around the park in a mad dash. Christo loved it, and so Liz loved to let him. She'd just sit and watching, giggling at all the fun he was having.

But then it had all gone wrong. Something had distracted him – something from the Glen, the bush right next to the park. And then before Liz had been able to stop him, he'd raced off, disappearing in-between the gum trees and out of Liz's sight.

And now she can't find him.

"Christo!" she calls, pacing desperately at the edge of the Glen. The bush scares her – it always looked so dark inside, so unknown and terrifying. The Glen was a place far removed from the comfortable, safe streets and houses that Liz is familiar with. Not to mention the stories they told about the Glen – _haunted,_ they said. Haunted by the Glen Ghost.

She doesn't want to go in and meet the Glen Ghost. If only Christo would just come out on his own! But…what if the Glen Ghost has got him? What if it the Glen Ghost had lured him away? "Oh, Christo," she says, tears pricking at her eyes.

"Are you alright?" a voice calls from behind her. Liz spins around, startled, to find herself face-to-face with an Asian girl around her age, wearing running shoes and a jogging tracksuit.

"My…my dog…" Liz says, biting her lip and trying not to cry. "He's gone and, and I…he won't come back…"

"Well, let's go look for him, then," the girl says, confident and sensible. Liz glances at the bush. It's the only choice, she knows that – she can't leave Christo to the Ghost – but the fear still halts her. The girl must sense what she's thinking, because she reaches out to touch Liz on the shoulder. "It'll be alright if we stick together," she says. She looks so strong and so brave, as if there's nothing to fear at all. Strong enough that Liz starts to feel that maybe just the strength of this girl's will can keep the Ghost at bay, all on its own.

So Liz nods and the girl strides into the Glen, Liz following along just a moment behind her.

"I'm Sunny," the girl says as they walk. "What's your dog's name?"

"C…Christo," says Liz. Feeling like it would be rude to not introduce herself after Sunny already did, she adds, "And I'm Liz."

Sunny nods. "Christo," she says, almost more to herself than to Liz. Then she starts looking around, peering intently through the trees and calling out his name.

Liz joins in. With each step she starts feeling less and less afraid – there's no Ghost leaping out of her, and it's almost impossible to feel scared in the face of Sunny's complete fearlessness. But even as the terror dies away, her worry for Christo only grows. She can't hear him barking back in response to their calls, and he hasn't run back to her. Where is he?

What if they never find him?

While Liz is lost in her own thoughts, Sunny stops, so suddenly Liz almost walks right into her. "What is it?" she says.

"Is that him?" Sunny says, pointing over to a patch of trees and bushes. They're closer together than the rest of the trees, almost like they are hiding something – and they are, because Liz sees a flash of fur in-between the leaves. In an instant Liz is racing towards it, all thoughts of the Ghost or fear forgotten entirely.

"Christo!" she cries, crashing into the bushes that had nearly hidden her dog from view. She nearly bursts into tears of happiness when she finally sees his shaggy form wagging his tail at her. She flings her arms around him, only pulling back when he starts to whine.

Only then does she finally see why he hadn't come when she'd called – his collar had managed to get stuck on a tree branch, presumably while he was trying to chase a rabbit into that rabbit hole right in front of him. "Oh, Christo," she says, crying tears of laughter now as she untangles him from the branch. "You shouldn't run off like that!"

Sunny catches up to her, crouching down to give Christo a scratch behind the ears.

"Thank you so much," Liz tells her.

Sunny shrugs. "It was no trouble. And besides, it's actually rather nice here. I think Christo must have found the best spot in the Glen."

Liz pauses and swings her head around to finally _look_ at her surroundings. Sunny is right – behind that patch of bushes and trees is a small clearing. She can't see the park, or the road, or any sign of civilisation at all from here, but rather than it being scary she finds it peaceful. The place feels like a secret gem, a private little corner of the world. It doesn't feel like a place that could be haunted by the Glen Ghost anymore.

"It is," Liz agrees.

"This place would be a really good place to play in too," Sunny added. "You could climb trees, and play hide and seek, and all sorts of games here."

"Yes," Liz said, getting up. Christo woofs softly, as if agreeing with them. "We should come play here tomorrow."

Sunny nods her agreement, and Liz can barely stop herself from beaming. She's always liked having friends that she can take care of, but…maybe having a friend who can take away her fears will be nice as well.


	5. Chapter 5

Liz is thirteen years old.

Only her first day at high school, and already she's a nervous mess. She'd gotten used to being in the eldest group of kids, but now she's in the youngest again and it leaves her feeling unsure and off-kilter. All around her are older kids, kids who look capable and mature and so _adult._ Next to them, Liz might as well be a baby. And that doesn't even go into the classes – now suddenly she has periods, and set subjects for set times, and she has to move from classroom to classroom and teacher to teacher rather than just staying nice and safe in the one classroom with the one teacher all day. Everything is strange and alien, and she's worried that she won't be able to adapt.

_Think positive, Liz,_ she tries to tell herself, running through the corridors to try and find her English classroom. It's not all bad. All of her friends are in the same school, now – before, she and Tom and Richelle were in one school, with Sunny and Nick in another. And even being in the same school hadn't meant they could always play together anyway, since most years Tom and Richelle weren't even in her class anyway, and she'd hardly ever gotten the chance to see them. But now they're all _together,_ and the game of musical classrooms means that even if she doesn't share one class with her friends, she will share another.

She just needs to find her feet, that's all.

Finally she reaches her English class and hovers at the door. Most of the other kids have gotten here before her, and she looks around, trying to find a spare seat.

Her eyes pull towards a red-headed boy sitting quietly in one of the seats near the front and leafing through a book. He looks like he's not bothered at all by the chaos around him – the confident kids already chatting to each other like old friends, the less boisterous ones shyly feeling each other out. But he sits alone, separate from everyone else.

Even though he seems so solitary, something about him feels friendly. Someone who likes books can't be all that bad, so Liz resolves to take the empty seat next to him.

She never gets there, though.

"Liz!" she hears from behind her. Spinning around, she's face to face with a smiling Sunny. "You're in this class too?" Sunny says.

"Yes," Liz says, beaming. "I didn't realise we'd be sharing this class!"

Already the red-haired boy is being pushed from her mind as she gravitates towards the familiar Sunny. Liz doesn't mind making new friends, but the ones she already has mean more to her. And for this first day, where everything is new and scary and strange, Liz is all too happy to stick to the one thing she already knows.

Sunny and Liz take two of the seats near the wall, and start chatting away about the other classes they'll have that day until the teacher arrives to take the roll. The red-haired boy is just a name, like all of the other students.

Liz is thirteen years old. When she thinks back to her first day of school, she wonders how things might be different if she'd gone to sit next to Elmo. Maybe they'd have gotten to know each other then, instead of a few months later when Teen Power Inc. was born and they had their first job - and mystery - at the Pen. Instead of seeing Elmo as just a kid who likes to hang around on his own and reading books, she could have been listening to him talk his head off about the _Pen's_ latest article, or the book he'd just read, like he is now, as she sits with him at lunch.

"Do you ever wonder how things would be different if we'd made friends at school?" Liz asks, interrupting Elmo in the middle of his ramble. "Instead of during everything with the _Pen_ and the Glen Ghost, I mean."

Elmo pauses, and turns to look at her seriously. "I don't know," he admits. "I've never really been good at making friends at school."

"That's not true!" Liz exclaims. Although it kind of is, she thinks guiltily. Elmo had been a different person at the Pen. No – he hadn't been a different person. The _Pen_ was where Elmo could really be himself. It was a school that Elmo was a different person.

"Yes, it is," Elmo says, sounding amused.

"Well, I think it must be that we were _meant_ to become friends through the _Pen,"_ Liz declares. "Especially since that's when we became Teen Power Inc. too. You're like the last piece of the puzzle."

And she likes it better that way, Liz realizes. Richelle, Tom, Nick, Sunny…she'd been befriending them since she was in kindergarten, but they weren't complete until they had Elmo. And they weren't a _team_ until they were Teen Power Inc. It doesn't matter whether she's known them for her whole life, or for just a few months – they're all her friends, and she wouldn't want to be without any of them.

"Whatever you say, Liz," Elmo says, apparently not sharing in Liz's epiphany.

"I'm glad you're one of us, Elmo," Liz tells him, feeling like it's important to let him know this.

Elmo pauses, and then smiles, looking genuinely touched. "I'm glad too, Liz."


End file.
